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I'm currently a junior in high-school preparing for college auditions. One of the auditions being at the Curtis Institute of Music. I would just like to know if anyone on here has had any experience with auditioning for Curtis. If so, could you please take the time to give a detailed account of your audition? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! Hsheck

I remember my audition there in 1980 looking to my far right as I walked in and saw Rudolf Serkin. With a pleasant smile and I'm thinking sitting to his right was maestro Horozowski one of my fathers favorites. Being 17 and it was my first audition I was way too scared all nerves. Good luck and make sure nervous don't become a part of your equation there. I would have loved it.

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Originally Posted By: Serge Marinkovic

I remember my audition there in 1980 looking to my far right as I walked in and saw Rudolf Serkin. With a pleasant smile and I'm thinking sitting to his right was maestro Horozowski one of my fathers favorites. Being 17 and it was my first audition I was way too scared all nerves. Good luck and make sure nervous don't become a part of your equation there. I would have loved it.

You didn't study at Curtis correct?

_________________________

"And if we look at the works of J.S. Bach — a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity... -Debussy

I remember my audition there in 1980 looking to my far right as I walked in and saw Rudolf Serkin. With a pleasant smile and I'm thinking sitting to his right was maestro Horozowski one of my fathers favorites. Being 17 and it was my first audition I was way too scared all nerves. Good luck and make sure nervous don't become a part of your equation there. I would have loved it.

You didn't study at Curtis correct?

From a previous thread:

Originally Posted By: Serge Marinkovic

Mine occurred when I was at my Curtis audition. For reference my father told me at my Julliard piano audition doo not look at the judges on the jury which I easy did until the end. However, at the Curtis audition my mother was with me. I walk in the room with the same intentions but for whatever reason I quickly spotted Rudolf Serkin and Jorge Bolet then I promptly froze. I could not remember how to start my Bach Prelude and Fugue in D major. Then Jorge Bolet hums the opening bars and I as suddenly remember the score and played almost flawlessly. I was wait listed but never made it in. I then studied at Julliard with Sasha Gorodninski and Earl Wild and later NYU. I tell everybody that story. I greeted Jorge Bolet at his Carnegie Hall recital three years later and went back stage and he remembered me. He said he voted for me but they only admitted 10 piano students that year but he would potentially welcome me as a private graduate student. I told him my ambition to become a surgeon and he said that would be a better advocation for anyone because piano was so unpredictable. He spoke to me for almost an hour like a father would. So the bad and the good out of a funny moment.

I was recently looking at my notes from high school and I saw how I wrote everything about Bolet but had not mentioned Horozowski on it at all. Its funny all the years my father would say when referring to Horozowski play Mozart like him, play Chopin like him and at 17 I thought it was too simple. Play Beethoven like Serkin and everything else like Bolet. But now how the tables have turned I love Horozowski along with Richter as my two favorites of all time. Horozowski Chopin Nocturne No 21 is the best tearful rendition I have heard. But maestro Wild was the best teacher I have had for anything. Just brilliant at anything from any era. His Bach WTC was three dimensional in color and I would listen and feel the dept of every nuance. I am so happy I finally understand what my father was trying to teach me and I wish I finished my studies at Julliard but performance anxiety in the 1980's just was not easily treatable and know one knew anything about it. Just dont get nervous think of anything else. Yes, really that is never going to work for anyone. But I have learned a lot and am now not too sensitive about it anymore.